The Wolf Of The Wall Street - Jordan Belfort

The Wolf Of The Wall Street

In business, the way to success depends on your ability to take the bull by the horns and surround yourself with loyal people

You could discover the secrets to the universe, find the answer to all the world’s problems, and nothing would change if you do not act on your new-found knowledge. It is the same when it comes to business.

To succeed in the world of business, you need to trust yourself enough to act out on what you think. Innovation rules the business world, which is why creativity is a must if you want to succeed. Being creative and having great ideas is a must, but the key is to be able to act on those ideas and utilize them to achieve your dreams. Otherwise they will remain ideas and will never bring about any progress.

When it comes to utilizing ideas, it doesn’t have to be your ideas. Never be afraid to take the bull by the horns whenever an idea with prospect crosses your path. Work hand in hand with those who have great ideas to bring those ideas to life, and take your business to the top.

This is what Stratton Oakmont was able to do. He saw that Jordan Belfort had a great idea that made it possible for young people who weren’t even educated to sound like the best professionals in broker business over the phone. An idea that worked since rich folk were very excited to take risks with their money once the risk sounded like it was legitimate.

Jordan Belfort might not have been the first person to come about this idea, but he was the one who acted on it, and Stratton benefited greatly from his execution of the idea.

At this point, it is clear that those you surround yourself with can make or break your business. If you have loyal, hard working people in your corner, you will go much further on the road to success. Stratton was lucky to have Belfort who was smart and had good ideas, and Belfort was lucky to have his friends Greene and Porush, who had known him before he became a Wall Street professional, and he could trust.

If you have the wrong people on your team, even if you take all the right steps, you will still be unable to reach your goals. The wrong people will keep drawing you back until you let them go or replace them. Your business is fully dependent on the people around you.

If you have the wrong people on your team, even if you take all the right steps, you will still be unable to reach your goals. The wrong people will keep drawing you back until you let them go, or replace them

An important part of business is your ability to make your ideas understood and not be afraid of difference and change

Now you have a great idea to move your business forward. You also have the perfect team by your side. Everything is set to shoot you to the top. However, there are a few more things you must learn if you are truly going to succeed. The first is being able to share your vision and make others understand your ideas. The importance of this cannot be overemphasized.

The perfect team will be unable to work with you if they don’t understand what it is you want to do. If you tell someone you want to achieve something, but you don’t explain to them how you want it done, it shouldn’t be surprising when they do it differently than you want, or do the wrong thing altogether. You must be able to explain your team what exactly your vision is, and how you want it achieved.

Always make sure that you carry everyone along. Make it simple for them to understand, and answer all questions, even if you might think such a question stupid. Clarity in the mind of all members of your team is worth going over something more than once.

Another very important thing to work on is accepting change and difference. It is possible for you to have a good idea, and that idea be perfected by someone else. Two heads are better than one. You could be good at one part, and need someone else to supplement your abilities in order to make it to the top.

This was the case with Belfort and his partner Danny Porush. They were polar opposites in every way, as much as hot and cold. This however did not mean that they clashed. It simply brought in versatility. Porush handled parts that Belfort could not handle, and Belfort handled things that Porush could not handle. Their relationship was symbiotic.

Another way to succeed includes the ability to get one’s self to begin thinking, acting and even dressing according to the business; constantly forming and working on higher goals to reach and having a concrete reputation

From the first day of the business, it was seen that the employees were bound with the command of always looking and acting the part. This was so important that John Belfort took it to the level of having a tailor make suits for the young employees of his business.

This all was done for a reason. It is a fact that when one continues to behave a certain way for a time, soon they become more confident and self assured in their role and this was the secret Jordan Belfort knew and he used to make his workers be the best they could be at his business.

Working for Stratton Oakmont, immensely high expectations were placed on every worker; making sure to constantly push each of them past what they feel are the normal limits, constantly pressing them to make more and do more.

Jordan Belfort himself stated that a rookie was expected to make nothing less than $250,000 in his first year in the business; failure to do this and the worker would be considered a “suspect” – in his words. Then by the second year, it was expected of the new worker to begin making again more than $500,000 and with failure to do so, the worker was considered worthless and useless; definitely at the risk of losing his job. By the third year, nothing less than a million was expected to amount or then they are a complete laughingstock.

All these expectations were set once again for a reason, it helped to once again push the workers past the state their minds would normally be comfortable with and help them to achieve greater than they could ever imagine.

Then again, in addition to this, looking, acting, and fully immersing oneself in the part of business and as well having high standards and creating expectations all lead to having a well set reputation. There was never a doubt to the public, or even the employees themselves in Stratton Oakmont that a lot of money was constantly being amassed each day.

To confirm this, all one needed to do was to take a simple look at the young, racially diverse, very well dressed men that spread havoc of the island; Long Island. Their reputation preceded them.

Although in Belfort’s case their reputation wasn’t always good, for your business, it is important to have a reputation that precedes you. This is how household names in the business industry are created.

Keep your business dealings secret and guarded, always push to be one step ahead of your business rivals and enemies and have a good knowledge of other business histories. Studying and learning from past mistakes made, all work hand in hand in growing a good business

Jordan Belfort himself carefully guarded his business dealings and kept them secret through many forms. The things he did include:

Using pay phones and other different covert forms of transmission and communication whenever it was needed, to ensure that it would not be possible for any other ear to listen in on what was being said about the business.

Once again, while on the phone, he made sure to be extra careful to never speak of any of the past business deals, or even clients.

He also made it a norm to have the whole Office of Stratton Oakmont swept and checked; thoroughly inspected for bugs regularly. He even took it as far as to perform the same thorough inspections in the houses of each of the top employees he had working under him.

Being highly crafty and intelligent as he was, he also drafted several legal documents and papers all in order, for the main purpose of having a means to deny any proclamations made against the business, saying it was shady or illegal.

Now, even though Jordan Belfort’s business was not exactly legal, his skills and smarts could still be dissected and the intelligent parts and the other parts which you feel would aid you can be used to establish a solid and firm business of your own.

Also, it does a great deal of help in striving to always know the next move of a rival or enemy; gathering intelligence on their mannerisms and behaviors can let you guess what moves they will play in the chess game that is business. Jordan Belfort gathered intelligence on his own enemies and rivals by bugging the SEC individuals who were investigating his business and even went ahead to befriend an FBI agent, Jim Barsini. Being friends with Barsini aided him well as it helped him to get the needed information about all the investigations that were carried out by his enemies on his business.

Belfort was a strong believer in the fact that if you refuse to learn from the past, you will be doomed to repeat the mistakes that had already been made. As such he religiously studied history.

Belfort said this to a Swiss “Master Forger” while they were discussing Banking laws. What John Belfort meant by his statement was that he was one who constantly studied and had a very good knowledge of past events that had occurred in his line of profession; he had well studied the great men who came before him and thus knew what they had to do, all it was that they had done to succeed. This also gave him a good knowledge of how to make his business good like theirs; or even greater.

Studying the past events of a business line of profession helps one gather knowledge on how to move smoothly in business; studying the past mistakes of others in one’s line of profession helps one aware and conscious of how not to make the same mistakes, even how to counter these kind of mistakes when one comes across them. We should all truly follow this Belfort’s particular example.

Studying and learning from past mistakes made, are an essential part of growing a good business.

Establishing core values pertaining to the business that is essential and as owner of the business you should keep to these core values; leading strongly by example and setting the standard so high that all the workers would have to strive with all they have to reach it

Stratton Oakmont was all about how necessary it was to seize the day. This meant a broad spectrum of things to him.

It was a way to tell the employees and workers to make as much money as they possibly could and to compete with their colleagues who could spend more than they could and live a more luxurious lifestyle. It was about taking opportunities as they came. He enforced this with his flashy lifestyle which they strove to match.

It was also a way of imbibing in the workers the attitude of making money and growing the business. He was always bringing in money to the business and all of the workers watching him, strove to do this also.

Nowadays, common core values for contemporary businesses include sustainability, being able to keep on time, integrity, being friendly to the environment, maintaining a good image of the business to the public, and much more.

Core values are of course more effective and passable to workers when the business owner sets an example by following those values and beliefs.

Jordan Belfort also spent his time acquiring money after watching Stratton and spending it on luxury items, drugs, prostitutes, lavish parties; no one did these things more than him.

He represented the highest point of lifestyle every one of his employees wanted to achieve. This caused them to spend unwisely and ensured that they remained broke, but it also ensured that they worked twice as hard to try to meet up.

Jordan Belfort certainly did not have their best interests at heart however. He wanted them to continue this way so he could keep amassing wealth while they struggled. Despite the fact that all these might not be the best actions; Jordan Belfort’s business sense in this area is still very much attainable to be applied in business.

It's also very important to make sure you are a person your workers can depend on

Also when necessary, one should provide incentives for hard work to encourage the other employees and workers to want to do better in business; helping the business grow immensely.

Jordan Belfort constantly encouraged his employees to live beyond their means, to spend their money lavishly; all to make sure that they get to the point of almost being broke so they would have no choice but to work with all their might to keep sustaining themselves then they get the slightest chance to do their jobs. He did all this to not only motivate the employees to work but to keep them dependent on him and literally have to stay at the firm and keep trying to make money to survive.

Belfort as well, despite the fact that he had already paid his employees higher than the normal going rate for stock brokers at that time, still had a practice where he would select people from among his employees, choosing the most hardworking and aid them in starting up businesses of their own; brokerage firms under his guidance. This made employees work even harder, hoping to be noticed and taken by the hand into the lavish life of the truly successful.

While Belfort made his workers continue to slave and spend their money wrongly to make them depend on the job to survive, you must instead simply be dependable and give your team members a sense of security in their job.

Belfort did these with malicious and selfish intent, but in your business, you can apply it without the negatives. Provide incentives for your workers. A very juicy bonus for one employee who works the hardest each month, gifts at the end of the year, and more. You should also be nicer to your team. Make yourself a friend as a boss. It should be possible for your employees to come to you to discuss their problems and more. This way, they feel a sense of belonging and would be less inclined to abandon your ship

Avoid drug use as much as you can. It will take its toll on you

In Belfort's life, there was a lot of drug use. Right in the beginning when he was still a newcomer, he was shown the cocaine life by his boss, Mark Hanna.

At that point, we see that there are still some reservations he holds against using drugs, but that chapter ends and in the very next one we see Belfort on a crazy trip induced by drugs, flying and crashing a helicopter and talking to people who aren't there.

An athlete could use steroids to improve their performance, muscle growth, stamina and whatnot, but at the end of the day, it's never worth it. If they get caught, that would not only be the end of their career, it would discredit all of their performances. Even those that were done without.

This is only one downside however as steroids also have side effects, like hair loss and skin thinning to name a few.

It is much worse with drugs like cocaine. Not only is it addictive, it can kill. Of course it might feel good, make you feel like you can do anything, be a major boost, but it will destroy your body and mind very quickly. It looked flashy to all of the employees who wanted to be rich to be able to spend money on drugs and drug – related activities, but it was a very dangerous lifestyle and could easily have landed them in the morgue.

When it comes to drugs, they are one thing you should definitely avoid on your climb to success.

Did you know? Drugs are dangerous. In the United States, 68,500 people died from drug overdoses in 2018.

Conclusion

The business world is difficult to navigate but with a great idea and the right team, you are well on your way. How well you do from there becomes solely dependent on you, how you handle your team members, and the image of your company that you present to the public. While Jordan Belfort was not always on the right path, it is impossible to ignore the business gems which can be dug up from his endeavors as the Wolf of Wall Street.

When your employees work hard, reward them. It could be with a bonus, or with a picture of them hanging on the wall as an award, but make sure to give your workers incentive to do better